Atheists and Theists don't exist.
Offline This is unusual to post my believe that there is no such thing as an Atheist or Theist on a forum for called "Atheist vs. Theist".
I have a difficult time explaining my views on things because it is just assumed that because that because the labels "Atheist" and "Theist" are thrown around so much that everyone assumes such people actually exist and this is a proper way to categorize people. I don't believe anyone fits either of these catagories. Since they don't exist, I'm going to stop using these terms to label people. I'm going to use my on terms base on how I see the reality of things. Here is how I will categorize people's religious positions:
Liars About Beliefs(LABs) - Religious People that lie and say they believe in a god and holy book, even though the really don't. These people were indoctrinated with religion, made to feel fear and guilt if they ever expressed doubt and are suckers for Pascal's wager. Also includes religious leaders who use religion for money and power. If you hooked these people up to a lie detector, it would show their "belief" is untrue. This is 99% of very religious people. Since they don't really believe in a God and only say they do, they can't be called Theists.
Delusional About Beliefs(DABs) - Religious People that are delusional about there being a God. I think this is a small minority of adult religious people. These people either have the mental capacity of a child or have a mental disorder like schizophrenia. Indoctrinated children who "believe" would also fit into this category since they could also be made to believe in Santa Claus. Adults that are this delusional would require medical treatment, they should not own a gun or drive a car, many should be institutionalized to protect society. It's ridiculous to call these people theists, just as it's ridiculous to call a small child a Democrat or Republican.
Don't Care(DCs) - People who sometimes claim to believe in God(when it's convenient) but are not very religious, don't know much about what any holy book, pastor or Rational Responder has to says. Cultural Christians. The unwashed masses. The morons in the middle. Ignorance is Bliss for these people. To call these people Theists is like calling a dog or a parrot a Theist.
Honest About Beliefs(HABs) - People that only assign probabilities of things being true based on evidence not fear or feelings. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence to be given any validity. Truth must be based on repeatable scientific experiments. These people can say we don't know, there is not enough evidence to make claims about the many mysteries of life and the universe. They don't need to say "God is the explanation" for every mystery that science does not yet have an answer.
Technically you can't assign a 0% probability to any Theist proposition. The probability of Jesus, Zeus or the Flying Spaghetti Monster myths being true is infinitesimally small, but it's not exactly zero. So you can't technically be an atheist. The term agnostic is bad because it often assumes that you assign a 50% probability of a Christian god existing, when the reality is something infinitesimally small.
I'm not going to use the term atheist to describe myself anymore since the LABs have successfully associated this term with having no morals. I'm a HAB. If someone ask my religion I will say "I'm honest with myself about what I believe to be true".
I'm posting what I believe here, so that in the future, I can point people to this post so they know how I label people and they don't think I'm crazy when I say "Theists and Atheists don't exist".
P.S. I still may be crazy though.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
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Offline LosingStreak06 wrote:Your categorization seems rather arbitrary to me.
OK, then how do you categorize beliefs and why? Is everyone who makes claims about belief telling the truth or are they lying, speaking out of fear, guilt and peer pressure? Should I still call these people Theists?
Can a 3 year old child be a Theist?
Sure, if they believed in a deity then they would be a theist.
Are they mentally strong enough to form such a belief? Unlikely.
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Offline A simple argument against your "classification" is that there is at least one matter to which some people de facto don't believe: mythologies.
While mythology holds an important part of our historical background in the form of art and superstition, lots of people no longer believe in Nyx, Bhaal, Astaroth, Tyr, Duergar, Tuatha Dé Danann, Sidhe, and a myriad other mythological creatures. Most people will politely try not to insult you if you suggest that the Chimera genuinely existed, or that the Quetzalcoatl still exists!
Hence, belief can have a "zero value."
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Offline OK, then why won't LABs take lie detector tests and submit to studies that can prove if God intervenes for prayer and tithing. Then I won't have to be presumptuous, we'd have data to prove if my theories are valid. I don't want to be presumptuous, but they leave me no choice. You are being presumptuous in claiming that they really do believe.
It would seem to me that your claim that all people who call themlves theists are either lying, or mad beyond the ability to function in society is what could be described as an "extraordinary claim." That you make it without presenting any "extraordinary" evidence (or any evidence at all, as of yet) seems to contradict your description of yourself as being an "HAB." Perhaps you aren't as honest as you would lead us to believe?
As far as I'm concerned, your claims are as valid as those made by theists who believe that eventually, some sort of scientific research will demonstrate the existance of their particular god, and no more.
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Offline I know for sure that I believed in a god. Sure I didn't know the alternatives but I did believe in a god. I don't hold a default position that the person I am talking to is a liar.
Well it sounds like in the evolution of your beliefs, you started out with childish indoctrination(DAB), then you reached a point of understanding about the world and nature that you had to either by honest with yourself about what you believed(HAB) or lie to yourself(LAB). You choose to be honest, many others choose to lie to themselves. So you don't know what it's like to lie to yourself and others about what you believe. I myself always had tons of doubt, but I was afraid to speak what I really believed.
Maybe lie is too harsh a term for some "believers". Maybe dishonest is a better word to describe people who say they believe out of fear. But for many people especially pastors who know better, you need to call a spade a spade.
The people that ended slavery, racism and sexism didn't do so by playing nice with the people who repressed others with their bigotry. I don't think your going to end this tyranny of the mind by playing nice and never offending the inflictors or supporters of this tyranny.
A 100 years, people would say I was being offensive to racists if I said called them lying ignorant boobs. Today it's OK to call a racist those things. Perhaps in 100 years if the moral zeitgeist changes it will be OK to call anyone who promotes or supports religious indoctrination, promises of heaven and fear of hell a liar and a fraud.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
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Offline *shakes head* okay I'm done here. You seem to be ignoring all points that are made.
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Offline It would seem to me that your claim that all people who call themselves theists are either lying, or mad beyond the ability to function in society is what could be described as an "extraordinary claim." That you make it without presenting any "extraordinary" evidence (or any evidence at all, as of yet) seems to contradict your description of yourself as being an "HAB." Perhaps you aren't as honest as you would lead us to believe?
This is a theory of mine. I don't claim it to be 100% true. That is why admit I'm being presumptuious. That is why I wish there were scientific experiments to prove if my theories are correct. That is the scientific method is it not? But "believers" don't want to do scientific experiment on their faith. The fact that they all refuse to do these experiments is some proof that they know they are lying when they say they really believe and that prayer works.
Since scientists can't do these experiments, I'd say I'm only about 98% sure this theory is correct. There may well be other categories that are appropriate and their could be exceptions.
I don't think it's an extraordinary claim that fearful, peer pressured, brainwashed people and greedy pastors will lie to themselves and others.
Please tell me then exactly what you believe about God and religion. Then let's devise experiments to help determine if your belief is really true. If my theory is wrong, I'd like know that.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
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Offline This is a theory of mine. I don't claim it to be 100% true. That is why admit I'm being presumptuious. That is why I wish to there were scientific experiments to prove if my theories are correct. That is the scientific method is it not? But "believers" don't want to do scientific experiment on their faith. The fact that they all refuse to do these experiments is some proof that they know they are lying when they say they really believe and that prayer works.
This doesn't seem like a vaild deduction. Believers see no need to scientifically validate their faith. It is a concept utterly foreign to their view of reality. Ther is nothing that compel's them toalleviate your skepticism.
Please tell me then exactly what you believe about God and religion. Then let's devise experiments to help determine if your belief is really true. If my theory is wrong, I'd like know that.
Science generally considers questions of faith as unfalsifiable. The existence of god cannot be proven or disproven. Some religious claims can be tested (Jesus will return tomorrow) but others cannot be determined as true or false with absolute certainty (Jesus was a real person).
If a person claims "God speaks to me", how would you prove that the voice in their head is not god? You can claim it's just schizophrenia, but that only demonstrates your version of reality. To prove absolutely that the voice in their head was not god you would have to prove with certainty that god does not exist. And we already know that that is unprovable.
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Offline Sure, if they believed in a deity then they would be a theist.
Are they mentally strong enough to form such a belief? Unlikely.
It doesn't seem like you want to distiguish beliefs that are real and those that are not. Is this really belief or is the child just being like a parrot? You want to lump everyone into Theist camp just because of what comes out of their mouth, not what's really going on in their mind.
I want to get to the heart of the matter and discover what people really believe and why. Dig Deep to discover real truth. Have discussions with others who want to discover the heart of the matter. If you don't want to go there, fine Adios. I don't know what point I'm missing.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
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Offline It doesn't seem like you want to distiguish beliefs that are real and those that are not. Is this really belief or is the child just being like a parrot? You want to lump everyone into Theist camp just because of what comes out of their mouth, not what's really going on in their mind.
I want to get to the heart of the matter and discover what people really believe and why. Dig Deep to discover real truth. Have discussions with others who want to discover the heart of the matter. If you don't want to go there, fine Adios. I don't know what point I'm missing.
Something exists in the mind before it comes out of the mouth. Seems to me you need to study psychology and neurology.
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Offline Mr. Atheist wrote:Sure, if they believed in a deity then they would be a theist.
Are they mentally strong enough to form such a belief? Unlikely.
It doesn't seem like you want to distiguish beliefs that are real and those that are not. Is this really belief or is the child just being like a parrot? You want to lump everyone into Theist camp just because of what comes out of their mouth, not what's really going on in their mind.
I want to get to the heart of the matter and discover what people really believe and why. Dig Deep to discover real truth. Have discussions with others who want to discover the heart of the matter. If you don't want to go there, fine Adios. I don't know what point I'm missing.
I said what they believed, not what they said.
As far as points that you're missing...the fundamental one that none of what you said invalidates the meaning and use of the words atheist or theist. Also the point that what you are suggesting is to assume all people are liars and that you can't trust what people say unless it's scientifially proven. What stops me, based on your own conclusions, to assume that you are a LAB as well until you can demonstrate to me scientifically that you actually truly do not believe in god. How about the point that your terminology could never be unversially accepted so it is useless.
The fact that you label "99% of very religious people to be liars and that they truly don't believe in a deity has got to be one of the most ludicrous and unsubstantiated claims. Just because you do not agree with someones conclusions that does not mean that they are lieing about their "faith". I'm sorry to be so blunt but I don't see how you can differnetiate this claim from "there is a god". You are just randomly inventing numbers and assumptions and seemingly pulling them out of thin air.
If you believe that what? 90% of the world is lieing about their faith and they need scientific testing, are you suggesting that people can't be trusted in anything they say? "He says he wants cheese on his sandwhich, lets get out the lie detector."
And if we're going to categorize this large % of the population as the "liars" why dont' we just have two groupings... "Liars and "not liars".
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Offline [If you believe that what? 90% of the world is lieing about their faith and they need scientific testing, are you suggesting that people can't be trusted in anything they say? "He says he wants cheese on his sandwhich, lets get out the lie detector."
And if we're going to categorize this large % of the population as the "liars" why dont' we just have two groupings... "Liars and "not liars".
People can't be trusted when they have some motivation to lie and they believe they won't get caught in the lie. Theists think they can't be caught in their lies about belief, which is why I like to challenge them to scientific testing. They get nervous at the possibility of their lies being detected. It's unlikely people ordering a sandwich would have any motivation to lie.
I think one should not trust people who are afraid to acquire knowledge. If you can find me one Theist who is willing to show us scientific data that god answers his prayers, I'll stop calling them all dishonest.
Maybe I shouldn't use the word lie because like everything else religion has poisoned it's meaning to mean sin. Maybe what's really going on is they are acting. People force themselves into an act of believing that the supernatural is real(all the world's a stage). But just like an actor, they know deep in their psyche the role is not real. In any case it's deception, so I don't trust any "believer's" sincerity.
Now what would be an interesting thing to discover is if religious beliefs are like acting, intentional deception, mental illness, childlike delusion, professing belief out of fear or possible as you claim sincere belief. With the brain scans we can do today, science could give us clues. But would "believers" submit to this kind of testing, would they want to know how their brain works when they are "believing". Could you imagine Christians hooked up to brainprobes during worship service? No! I think this is strong evidence they know they are lying or acting the role of faith.
I read the debate of Rick Warren vs. Sam Harris. I pretty much concluded that Pastor Warren doesn't even really believe. Mother Theresa papers are published which showed she had a high degree of doubt over a long period of time. Now, if these two people are pretty dishonest about what they really "believe", what does that say about the rest of Christandumb? Then in the Islamic world, faith is enforced by religious bullies that instill fear in the "faithful". So I don't think you can make the case that there are many if any true believers.
I would be willing to take a lie detector test to help prove I'm not a LAB. I want to know if my theories are right or wrong. The "believers" however will give you a lame excuse.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
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Offline LosingStreak06 wrote:It would seem to me that your claim that all people who call themselves theists are either lying, or mad beyond the ability to function in society is what could be described as an "extraordinary claim." That you make it without presenting any "extraordinary" evidence (or any evidence at all, as of yet) seems to contradict your description of yourself as being an "HAB." Perhaps you aren't as honest as you would lead us to believe?
This is a theory of mine.
As long as we're insisting on being scientific, then I'd have to point out that its actually an untested hypothesis (at best). Not a theory.
I don't claim it to be 100% true. That is why admit I'm being presumptuious.
It seems to me that someone who persists in being presumptuous, yet claims that scientific reasoning is paramount, comes across as largely dishonest.
That is why I wish there were scientific experiments to prove if my theories are correct.
A true "HAB" wouldn't hold onto beliefs, hunches, or pet "theories" that hadn't been scientifically verified.
That is the scientific method is it not?
I'd like to think that the scientific method goes far above and beyond "wishing." I don't know just how long it's been since you had a lesson about the scientific method, but I seem to recall that the "form a hypothesis" step is done in conjunction of designing and performing the experiment. Without the experiment to test the hypothesis, the hypothesis itself is scientifically worthless.
But "believers" don't want to do scientific experiment on their faith. The fact that they all refuse to do these experiments is some proof that they know they are lying when they say they really believe and that prayer works.
Pointing fingers doesn't excuse your abuse of science.
Since scientists can't do these experiments, I'd say I'm only about 98% sure this theory is correct. There may well be other categories that are appropriate and their could be exceptions.
Not a theory.
I don't think it's an extraordinary claim that fearful, peer pressured, brainwashed people and greedy pastors will lie to themselves and others.
You don't think that it is an extraordinary claim that 80-90% of the global population is either lying about the same thing, or insane beyond functionability? Forgive me for saying that you, sir, are an idiot.
Please tell me then exactly what you believe about God and religion. Then let's devise experiments to help determine if your belief is really true. If my theory is wrong, I'd like know that.
I believe that you have no intention of testing your theory, because it is easier for you to categorize people who believe things you find unappealing to carry conditions that you also find unappealing (i.e. insanity or deceitfulness). I believe that you are being intellectually dishonest about your "theory," and while I have no problem at all whatsoever with intellectual dishonesty, I'm more than willing to point it out in any who claim to be rational-minded. Because the irony tickles me so.
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Offline Now what would be an interesting thing to discover is if religious beliefs are like acting, intentional deception, mental illness, childlike delusion, professing belief out of fear or possible as you claim sincere belief. With the brain scans we can do today, science could give us clues. But would "believers" submit to this kind of testing, would they want to know how their brain works when they are "believing". Could you imagine Christians hooked up to brainprobes during worship service? No! I think this is strong evidence they know they are lying or acting the role of faith.
Studies like this are already being done. People are calling your labels childish because they are. You haven't made room for the people who honestly believe in god. Whether that belief is correct or not doesn't mean anything about if they're being honest or not. That it, it is definitely possible for someone to honestly believe something that is factually incorrect.
I read the debate of Rick Warren vs. Sam Harris. I pretty much concluded that Pastor Warren doesn't even really believe. Mother Theresa papers are published which showed she had a high degree of doubt over a long period of time. Now, if these two people are pretty dishonest about what they really "believe", what does that say about the rest of Christandumb? Then in the Islamic world, faith is enforced by religious bullies that instill fear in the "faithful". So I don't think you can make the case that there are many if any true believers.
You make the assertion that there are not many "true believers" but you have no means of knowing if that is true or not. Some people might believe out of fear or because they don't know any better, but that doesn't make it true for all people.
I would be willing to take a lie detector test to help prove I'm not a LAB. I want to know if my theories are right or wrong. The "believers" however will give you a lame excuse.
How many thiests have you asked if they would be willing to take such a test to show that they aren't lying about their belief?
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Offline As long as we're insisting on being scientific, then I'd have to point out that its actually an untested hypothesis (at best). Not a theory.
From wikipedia on theory:
In common usage, the word theory is often used to signify a conjecture, an opinion, or a speculation. In this usage, a theory is not necessarily based on facts; in other words, it is not required to be consistent with true descriptions of reality. This usage of theory leads to the common incorrect statement "It's not a fact, it's only a theory." True descriptions of reality are more reflectively understood as statements which would be true independently of what people think about them. In this usage, the word is synonymous with hypothesis.
Your right it's untested, the only evidence I have is anecdotal like the Mother Teresa papers and Rick Warren's reasons for "belief". But that's the scientific method, you come up with a conjecture base on a pattern you observe. Listen to your critics, devise experiments to see if your hypothesis are true or not.
It seems to me that someone who persists in being presumptuous, yet claims that scientific reasoning is paramount, comes across as largely dishonest.
The hypothesis(being presumptuous) must precede and experiment or any conclusions. That's the scientific method.
but I seem to recall that the "form a hypothesis" step is done in conjunction of designing and performing the experiment. Without the experiment to test the hypothesis, the hypothesis itself is scientifically worthless.
For many question of science, the technology does not yet exist to verify the hypothesis. Look at quantum theory and string theory. Einstein didn't have particle accelerators around to verify his theories, so he should have not published or even mentioned his theories? In fact, his theories inspired others to develop technology to verify his theories.
I think if more people put out ideas, speculations and theories like this, maybe this would inspire engineers to develop better lie detection and mind probe technology. Maybe someday there will be a faith verification machine. Wouldn't this be good, so you'd know you're going to heaven and not hell(at least according to your holy books)? If faith is going to get you into heaven, why not take a lie detector test now? Then if it show some issues with your faith, work harder at forcing yourself to "believe".
You don't think that it is an extraordinary claim that 80-90% of the global population is either lying about the same thing, or insane beyond functionability? Forgive me for saying that you, sir, are an idiot.
They don't all claim to believe the same thing. It's whatever you're conditioned by your culture to be dishonest about, this lack of objectivity demonstrates dishonesty. Your holy books say all men are sinners, so why is it so absurd to claim that all non delusional Theists are lying to themselves?
Maybe lying is a politically incorrect choice of words. That is because lying implies sin, which doesn't exist. But religion poisons everything, including the English language.
Will just one member of the 80-90% of the population that claims that a god answers prayers present verifiable, repeatable evidence that this is the case. No. So none of them are being honest since they don't want to give us any evidence. They lie to themselves.
I didn't think I was lying when I was a religious Christian either. But looking back I was lying to myself. Religion, by forcing people to believe and putting fear and guilt into people is causing "believers" to lie to themselves.
Your calling me an idiot(that's real rational and scientific) because you are offended that I am calling many believers liars. Since I don't believe anyone is offending any god by lying, the lie is only immoral when the person lying knows the lie is harmful to society and the person has freewill not to lie.
When the Islamic religious police go around and force people to believe, I don't think these lies to save one's life are immoral. I don't' think most Christians who lie about their certain "belief" can see the damage it does to society. I'm not intentionally trying to offend by calling a spade a spade or a lie a lie. I'm just being honest as I see it.
The Theist have won the battle to push their agenda into the public arena by taking the moral high ground. By saying religion causes people to be moral and honest. By saying atheists have no reason to be moral or honest.
I think can atheists can win the high ground by pointing out how dishonest it is to "believe" in something for which there is no evidence and to refuse to do experiments which could validate their claims.
P.S. I'm not holding my breath waiting for just one honest Theist to show the world verifiable, repeatable evidence that God answers prayers.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
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Offline LosingStreak06 wrote:
As long as we're insisting on being scientific, then I'd have to point out that its actually an untested hypothesis (at best). Not a theory.
From wikipedia on theory:
In common usage, the word theory is often used to signify a conjecture, an opinion, or a speculation. In this usage, a theory is not necessarily based on facts; in other words, it is not required to be consistent with true descriptions of reality. This usage of theory leads to the common incorrect statement "It's not a fact, it's only a theory." True descriptions of reality are more reflectively understood as statements which would be true independently of what people think about them. In this usage, the word is synonymous with hypothesis.
Your right it's untested, the only evidence I have is anecdotal like the Mother Teresa papers and Rick Warren's reasons for "belief". But that's the scientific method, you come up with a conjecture base on a pattern you observe. Listen to your critics, devise experiments to see if your hypothesis are true or not.
So scientific is only required for other people and not your own theory. Check.
LosingStreak06 wrote:
It seems to me that someone who persists in being presumptuous, yet claims that scientific reasoning is paramount, comes across as largely dishonest.
The hypothesis(being presumptuous) must precede and experiment or any conclusions. That's the scientific method.
Generally people have a reason before making their "guesses" as to the results. You don't appear to have any education on the subect or substantial reason to back your assumptions...just biased uneducated guesses. That's why you're not getting any support.
LosingStreak06 wrote:
but I seem to recall that the "form a hypothesis" step is done in conjunction of designing and performing the experiment. Without the experiment to test the hypothesis, the hypothesis itself is scientifically worthless.
For many question of science, the technology does not yet exist to verify the hypothesis. Look at quantum theory and string theory. Einstein didn't have particle accelerators around to verify his theories, so he should have not published or even mentioned his theories? In fact, his theories inspired others to develop technology to verify his theories.
I think if more people put out ideas, speculations and theories like this, maybe this would inspire engineers to develop better lie detection and mind probe technology. Maybe someday there will be a faith verification machine. Wouldn't this be good, so you'd know you're going to heaven and not hell(at least according to your holy books)? If faith is going to get you into heaven, why not take a lie detector test now? Then if it show some issues with your faith, work harder at forcing yourself to "believe".
I don't think anyone else thinks that everyone in the world are compulsive liars so they don't see a need to test everyone before handing them a certificate of authenticity to what they claim is their opinion.
LosingStreak06 wrote:
You don't think that it is an extraordinary claim that 80-90% of the global population is either lying about the same thing, or insane beyond functionability? Forgive me for saying that you, sir, are an idiot.
They don't all claim to believe the same thing. It's whatever you're conditioned by your culture to be dishonest about, this lack of objectivity demonstrates dishonesty. Your holy books say all men are sinners, so why is it so absurd to claim that all non delusional Theists are lying to themselves?
It doesn't demonstrate dishonesty, it demonstrates inconsistancy.
Lying to themselves or lying to you? What exactly does "lying to themselves" mean? If they believe it, they believe it. Are you suggesting that they are conciously just telling them that they believe but they really don't? You think that 90% of the world doesn't actually believe what they say they believe? I am just shocked you keep going with this...it is simply a ludicrous claim.
Maybe lying is a politically incorrect choice of words. That is because lying implies sin, which doesn't exist. But religion poisons everything, including the English language.
Sin? who care about sin, it implies intentional dishonesty.
Will just one member of the 80-90% of the population that claims that a god answers prayers present verifiable, repeatable evidence that this is the case. No. So none of them are being honest since they don't want to give us any evidence. They lie to themselves.
Are you suggesting that no one has ever undgone a lie detector test? How are are you of that claim? Is that the basis of all this bullshit? 1 person and you'd take all of this bull back?
I didn't think I was lying when I was a religious Christian either. But looking back I was lying to myself. Religion, by forcing people to believe and putting fear and guilt into people is causing "believers" to lie to themselves.
Another load of shit coming off your finger tips. If you don't know that you are lieing, then you are NOT lieing. You are not being dishonest if that is your opinion. Perhaps it is intellectual dishonesty in regards to claiming that you know the alternatives etc, but you are not being dishonest about your faith. Regardless of why someone believes something they are not lieing if they are suggesting that it is what they believe. It is just an opinon that may or may not be innacurate. If they find out later they were wrong and hadn't invested enough time to form a proper opinion, that does not make them a liar in the past, it just makes them wrong.
Your calling me an idiot(that's real rational and scientific) because you are offended that I am calling many believers liars. Since I don't believe anyone is offending any god by lying, the lie is only immoral when the person lying knows the lie is harmful to society and the person has freewill not to lie.
I am calling you an idiot because you are proposing a totally irrational unscientific claim that doesn't even have a purpose. You claimed that atheists and theists don't exist, yet haven't refuted my claims that all of your classifications fall under one or the other. I'm not going to go into the lie factor more because it's a total crock of shit. I refuse to believe that 90% of the world are going out of their way to lie about their faith in an deity.
When the Islamic religious police go around and force people to believe, I don't think these lies to save one's life are immoral. I don't' think most Christians who lie about their certain "belief" can see the damage it does to society. I'm not intentionally trying to offend by calling a spade a spade or a lie a lie. I'm just being honest as I see it.
I think you're calling a diamond a spade. And I think you need to get your eyes checked. The effects on society have nothing to do with honesty about their belief.
The Theist have won the battle to push their agenda into the public arena by taking the moral high ground. By saying religion causes people to be moral and honest. By saying atheists have no reason to be moral or honest.
I think can atheists can win the high ground by pointing out how dishonest it is to "believe" in something for which there is no evidence and to refuse to do experiments which could validate their claims.
P.S. I'm not holding my breath waiting for just one honest Theist to show the world verifiable, repeatable evidence that God answers prayers.
This has nothing to do with anything that has been talked about to this point. People are quite capable and always have been capable of believing things without evidence. Intellectual dishonesty and lieing about being a theist are very different claims.
As for evidence that god answers prayers...what does this have to do with someone being a theist or not? Many scientific studies on prayers have been done.
I think you need to go back to he drawing board on this theory. You are pulling shit out of thin air.
If you came into this saying that all theists were being intellectual dishonest with themselves I might be able to side with you. But to suggest that they don't actually believe in a deity despite their cliams is just the weirdest claim I have seen in a long time. I think you are being intellectually dishonest with yourself if you think there is a basis to these claims.
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Offline In Summary:
1) All of your categories are still theists or atheists so both atheists and theists do exist which contradicts your subject.
2) Your understanding of atheist and agnostic is incorrect.
3) Your assumption that 80-90% of the world's population are lie about their claim to believe in a deity is nothing short of stupid.
4) Proving that someone believes in a deity and proving the effect of a prayer are different subjects.
5) Moral and ethical high ground has nothing to do with the opening topic.
6) You seem to think that scientific studies on the effect of prayers and tests of faith have not happened, and you need to look into that. Links were even provided earlier in this thread to some tests of that nature.
7) Your terminology would never be accepted on a large scalebecause it is unnecessary, biased, redundant, offensive, and wrong.
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Offline 3) Your assumption that 80-90% of the world's population are lie about their claim to believe in a deity is nothing short of stupid.
Any claim that Theists are being completely honest has no evidence. Remeber they claim something is true with no evidence. When you point this out, they still insist it is true.
Let's assume that astronomers told us a giant metor was going to hit the earth in 1 year and wipe out all human life. What kinds of things would we expect to see for the world to do if they believed the scientists. I think we'd see this kind of stuff:
People and governments would spend every dime they had to find a technolgy to stop the meteor from hitting the earth.
You would see teams of engineers all over the world proposing solutions and asking for the resourse to implement their solutions.
Nearly everyone would be completely obsessed with researching any technology that could possibly save the earth. They would not be biased toward finding the answer in their country of birth.
People would donate all their wealth to the engineers they had the most faith in.
Laws would be implemented to force the entire society to devote all it's resources into saving the earth.
If the world is as you say 80-90% true believing Theist. Here's the type of things we'd see:
Total obsession with finding the right way to please God. Theists would continually study all the holy books and nothing else to try and see what God really wants from us and which religion is correct.
Theists would put their resourse into developing faith verification technology. They would continually have themselves and their children tested to verify that they have no doubt so they can get into heaven.
Since many Theists claim they get favor from God for converting atheists, we'd be continually bombarded with missionaries at our doors and non-stop advertisements with contant messages of why we need to turn or burn.
Non-stop testing of prayer methods and how to get God to answer prayers. Scientists would have tons of money from Theists to study the effectiveness of prayers.
If you went into Bible believing churches, you would see people drinking deadly poison, picking up deadly snakes and trying to move mountains with their faith.
Theists would continually be obsessed with religioius indoctrination to eliminate all doubt. They would just constantly watch shows that reinforce their faith. They would hire psychologists to help brainwash themselves and their children with no doubt. Children would be exposed to nothing but religion since other exposures could cause doubt and loss of their eternal souls which is far worse than losing their lives.
Theists would devote all their time and money to the pursuit of religion.
All muslims would be suicide martyers, instead of the very small minority we see.
Bottom line, if people really believed in the pardise vs. doomsday(for all eternity) senario of religion, you would see some pretty exterme things going on. As bad as religion is, most people know deap down that it's bullshit. You only have a very few delusional nuts doing extreme things like the 9/11 hijackers.
I disagree with your other points and I don't think you can see my points because you are still blinded by religious dogma even though you don't claim a belief in god. You think religious claims deserve more respect than any other claim, I don't.
6) You seem to think that scientific studies on the effect of prayers and tests of faith have not happened, and you need to look into that. Links were even provided earlier in this thread to some tests of that nature.
Yes I know there are studies that Christian love to throw out on the benifits of prayer and faith. But that in no way proves god or the supernatural. I'm talking about reapeatable double blind studies that can prove supernatural intervention for prayer. Where is that experiment that can be repeated? The Christians get away with junk science and junk logic by claiming these experiments are evidence of God.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
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Offline Karma ?
Be aware of this message, try it, prayer/meditation too, do it in the mirror, say HI to you, be nice, extra understanding to yourself at all times, pass it on, see what happens .... say hellow to the ugly with a smile, so DID that Jesus. Yeah Jesus ! .... me is an atheist for jesus .....
yeah yeah WTF ..... sheezzz, 
Crying is your blessing TOO, you do know ? Can ya feel ! WHY ? 
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Offline well in my mind niether atheists or theists exist because you need a God to wager such rediculous terms. and Simply put.
No God. = no term of Theist
so without the the term Theist there can be no Atheist. Much like you can not blaspheme if there is no god to blaspheme
Simply put no gods at all an no demons.
but now I am expecting somebody is going to throw a PASCAL's wager at me like an idiot.
I only say that because Pascal wasan obvious theist, and theist cant do logical philosophy they can only do what their told. I know harsh but fact.
If God didn't want atheists than we wouldn't exist..
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Offline Mr. Atheist wrote:
3) Your assumption that 80-90% of the world's population are lie about their claim to believe in a deity is nothing short of stupid.
Any claim that Theists are being completely honest has no evidence. Remeber they claim something is true with no evidence. When you point this out, they still insist it is true.
Ignorance does not equate to dishonesty, it is just ignorance. It could very easily be called intellectual dishonesty, but it is not blatant dishonesty. They are ignorant, and close minded. This is a very different thing.
Let's assume that astronomers told us a giant metor was going to hit the earth in 1 year and wipe out all human life. What kinds of things would we expect to see for the world to do if they believed the scientists. I think we'd see this kind of stuff:
People and governments would spend every dime they had to find a technolgy to stop the meteor from hitting the earth.
Governents yes, people, no. Many people await the end of days openly and even encourage it.
But what the hell does this have to do with if someone beliefs in a deity or not? Self preservation does not prove that people are liars.
You would see teams of engineers all over the world proposing solutions and asking for the resourse to implement their solutions.
You would also see a lot of people praying.
Nearly everyone would be completely obsessed with researching any technology that could possibly save the earth. They would not be biased toward finding the answer in their country of birth.
What does this have to do with a belief in a deity?
People would donate all their wealth to the engineers they had the most faith in.
What does this have to do with a belief in a deity?
Laws would be implemented to force the entire society to devote all it's resources into saving the earth.
What does this have to do with a belief in a deity?
If the world is as you say 80-90% true believing Theist. Here's the type of things we'd see:
Total obsession with finding the right way to please God. Theists would continually study all the holy books and nothing else to try and see what God really wants from us and which religion is correct.
Correct, obsession with religion would naturally occur. People always resort to religion in a time of crises. This has been proven time and time again. I don't think they would be looking for which religion is correct, but rather assuming theirs is correct as they do now and focus on it.
Theists would put their resourse into developing faith verification technology. They would continually have themselves and their children tested to verify that they have no doubt so they can get into heaven.
LoL, no I don't think this is true at all.
Since many Theists claim they get favor from God for converting atheists, we'd be continually bombarded with missionaries at our doors and non-stop advertisements with contant messages of why we need to turn or burn.
This already happens.
Non-stop testing of prayer methods and how to get God to answer prayers. Scientists would have tons of money from Theists to study the effectiveness of prayers.
Lol, no I don't think this is true at all. Faith is a virtue to be tested.
If you went into Bible believing churches, you would see people drinking deadly poison, picking up deadly snakes and trying to move mountains with their faith.
Are you drunk? You must be.
Theists would continually be obsessed with religioius indoctrination to eliminate all doubt. They would just constantly watch shows that reinforce their faith. They would hire psychologists to help brainwash themselves and their children with no doubt. Children would be exposed to nothing but religion since other exposures could cause doubt and loss of their eternal souls which is far worse than losing their lives.
Lol, no I don't think this is true at all.
Theists would devote all their time and money to the pursuit of religion.
I partially agree with this. THey would devote a lot of thier time to their faith, and their family.
All muslims would be suicide martyers, instead of the very small minority we see.
That's rather presumptuous of the extremity of peoples faiths.
Bottom line, if people really believed in the pardise vs. doomsday(for all eternity) senario of religion, you would see some pretty exterme things going on. As bad as religion is, most people know deap down that it's bullshit. You only have a very few delusional nuts doing extreme things like the 9/11 hijackers.
People can believe in a deity without it being all the extreme bullshit you invented in your fucked up little doomsday universe. To you classify deists into this group? Why the fuck would a deist care about faith etc? Why would a pantheist?
I don't think you have a clue what a moderate person believes in. That's a real shame because you seem to think that it's all or nothing, and that's just not reality.
I disagree with your other points and I don't think you can see my points because you are still blinded by religious dogma even though you don't claim a belief in god. You think religious claims deserve more respect than any other claim, I don't.
Lol, no, I just don't think your bullshit clames deserve any respect either.
I'm talking about the odds on it being accepted. Offensive terms don't get accepted in standard speech particularly when it's attempted to be enforced by a minority. Are you this fucking clueless? You are living proof that there is no rationality or sensibility needed to be an atheist. Holy fuck you're thick.
Mr. Atheist wrote:
6) You seem to think that scientific studies on the effect of prayers and tests of faith have not happened, and you need to look into that. Links were even provided earlier in this thread to some tests of that nature.
Yes I know there are studies that Christian love to throw out on the benifits of prayer and faith. But that in no way proves god or the supernatural. I'm talking about reapeatable double blind studies that can prove supernatural intervention for prayer. Where is that experiment that can be repeated? The Christians get away with junk science and junk logic by claiming these experiments are evidence of God.
Christians? There's many studies that disprove the effectiviness of prayer. Dawkins even talks about it in TGD. Do your homework. There are many excuses already out htere why these studies don't work, it does not phase the average person and the average person is ignorant to them.
You just don't get it do you? You don't get that no one here has agreed with your bullshit definitions. You have nothing to back them up. You have demonstrated a lack of understanding of the words you're trying to replace, and have even moved away from defending the fact that your original subject is a load of shit. You don't have a clue what you're talking about. The comments you have posted here have been the biggest load of unsubstantiated bullshit I have seen since the claim that god is real.
You write off the majority of my points because you just don't have a way to defend them. Because they are right.
I was really trying to play easy but you keep pushing this subject and I'm going to call it for what it is...it's a big pile of steaming bullshit.
You dont' recognize that ignorance or miseducation has no bearing on if someone is being honest about their belief. It's just that simple. You just don't know the meaning of words and are in serious need of reading a dictionairy before publishing shit like this, and particularly before defending this as much as you have.
You are a theist. Until you provide me scientific double blind studies that prove otherwise, you are a theist.
Fuck that, you are an islamic fundamentalist and a LAB. Fucking liar.
Until this point in the thread you have not demonstrate any defence of the statements made, you just spit out more analogies that backup your load of shit. Go get some evidence and come back and talk.
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Offline Some people might believe out of fear or because they don't know any better, but that doesn't make it true for all people.
This whole thing is turning into madness, trying to understand how a rational person could claim to believe something for which there is no evidence.
Please explain how it is possible to believe something out of fear or ignorance. Do the Muslims who put a knife to people's throat really make them "believe". How does one believe something when does not enough knowledge to make a claim?
Maybe the whole problem with my position is misunderstand of what is belief.
You hear sports fans say I believe my team will win it all this season. So do they really believe with total certainty. If you press them to be honest and they are not lying, they will admit they are engaged in wish thinking. If they insist on still saying they believe, you can know they are probably lying because of their actions or lack thereof.
If they do believe, they would probably sell everything they own, borrow all the money they could, then go to a casino sports book and bet their team to win it all, right? They would borrow from loan sharks who would kill them if they didn't pay it all back. Do we ever see many "believers" do that?
So I'm saying that I know Theists are probably lying about their belief, that it is really wish thinking and just like the sports fan who insists his team will win, they know it. I know this is probably true because of their actions and statements are not consistent with people who really believe.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
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Offline well in my mind niether atheists or theists exist because you need a God to wager such rediculous terms. and Simply put.
No God. = no term of Theist
so without the the term Theist there can be no Atheist. Much like you can not blaspheme if there is no god to blaspheme
Simply put no gods at all an no demons.
but now I am expecting somebody is going to throw a PASCAL's wager at me like an idiot.
I only say that because Pascal wasan obvious theist, and theist cant do logical philosophy they can only do what their told. I know harsh but fact.
EXC, take notes...this is a reasonable fucking argument.
I dont' agree due to cultural standards and ultimatly those are the things that establish words...but it's a reasonable statement and easily defendable. In an ideal world, it is dead on.
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Offline Fish wrote:Some people might believe out of fear or because they don't know any better, but that doesn't make it true for all people.
This whole thing is turning into madness, trying to understand how a rational person could claim to believe something for which there is no evidence.
Please explain how it is possible to believe something out of fear or ignorance. Do the Muslims who put a knife to people's throat really make them "believe". How does one believe something when does not enough knowledge to make a claim?
Maybe the whole problem with my position is misunderstand of what is belief.
You hear sports fans say I believe my team will win it all this season. So do they really believe with total certainty. If you press them to be honest and they are not lying, they will admit they are engaged in wish thinking. If they insist on still saying they believe, you can know they are probably lying because of their actions or lack thereof.
If they do believe, they would probably sell everything they own, borrow all the money they could, then go to a casino sports book and bet their team to win it all, right? They would borrow from loan sharks who would kill them if they didn't pay it all back. Do we ever see many "believers" do that?
So I'm saying that I know Theists are probably lying about their belief, that it is really wish thinking and just like the sports fan who insists his team will win, they know it. I know this is probably true because of their actions and statements are not consistent with people who really believe.
Believing in something without evidence is faith. You clearly don't understand how faith is possible, but it is a very real thing and has been present on our world for much longer than documented history. It is how people explain things they don't understand.
I believe that the books I have read by Richard Dawkins were written by him. Outside of the name on it, I have no scientific evidence and have not done scientific studies. I have determined that it is reasonable to believe that he wrote it based on the evidence I have without looking further.
If someone threatens to kill me, I believe that I might die. Am I lieing about my belief that I might die? No, but I came to it as a result of fear.
Belief is a persona stance, belief is not knowledge. Belief is not truth. Belief is just belief.
You are also assuming 'what' people believe. A theist believes in a deity, it is a generalization and does not explicitly specify what each persons personal or religious god promotes. Many people have a personal definition of their deity.
A persons belief in a deity is a bit more than a sports analogy. It is not a matter of winning or losing, it is not having a suitable alternative. The deity existing is the only viable option and the option of no deity is not one they are willing to accept as possible because it does not seem sensible that when they die they die. Death is a source of great fear and people will calmly believe in a deity to avoid the fear of the unknown, and particularly their fear of death.
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Offline Slayne wrote:well in my mind niether atheists or theists exist because you need a God to wager such rediculous terms. and Simply put.
No God. = no term of Theist
so without the the term Theist there can be no Atheist. Much like you can not blaspheme if there is no god to blaspheme
Simply put no gods at all an no demons.
but now I am expecting somebody is going to throw a PASCAL's wager at me like an idiot.
I only say that because Pascal wasan obvious theist, and theist cant do logical philosophy they can only do what their told. I know harsh but fact.
EXC, take notes...this is a reasonable fucking argument.
I dont' agree due to cultural standards and ultimatly those are the things that establish words...but it's a reasonable statement and easily defendable. In an ideal world, it is dead on.
the post above was mainly using the philosophical standpoint that there can be no god, hence why I threw Pascal into the argument.
If God didn't want atheists than we wouldn't exist..
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Offline This whole thing is turning into madness, trying to understand how a rational person could claim to believe something for which there is no evidence.
Please explain how it is possible to believe something out of fear or ignorance. Do the Muslims who put a knife to people's throat really make them "believe". How does one believe something when does not enough knowledge to make a claim?
Maybe the whole problem with my position is misunderstand of what is belief.
You hear sports fans say I believe my team will win it all this season. So do they really believe with total certainty. If you press them to be honest and they are not lying, they will admit they are engaged in wish thinking. If they insist on still saying they believe, you can know they are probably lying because of their actions or lack thereof.
If they do believe, they would probably sell everything they own, borrow all the money they could, then go to a casino sports book and bet their team to win it all, right? They would borrow from loan sharks who would kill them if they didn't pay it all back. Do we ever see many "believers" do that?
So I'm saying that I know Theists are probably lying about their belief, that it is really wish thinking and just like the sports fan who insists his team will win, they know it. I know this is probably true because of their actions and statements are not consistent with people who really believe.
Your definition of "belief" is lacking to the point that were you its parent, I would report you to the authorities for neglect.
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Offline Doesn't this sort of trivialize what this website is about?
When you start down this road nobody takes you seriously anymore. By the site users begining to speak their own coded language they are essentially cutting this site and its message off from the outside world. This kind of thing makes this site more exclusive and exclusivity is not something this community needs. You do not want people coming here asking what 'LAB' means it is off putting. This site should be accessible to everybody and people should be able to understand what is being said without studying the sites abbreviation dictionary.
This is not just something I am assuming or making up this is exactly what happened with the seduction industry. I use to coach men who could not pick up women how to get women interested and these men use to pay me to teach them. It all started with some American guy forming an online community. Eventually people started making up these abbreviations exactly like you are doing and now. Eventually in part because of this formation of a insider type language the seduction community became known as a strange community of desperate losers.
I really think going down this road will only lead to bad things. Let's keep this community accessible to the general public, the people it was created for, the people that need it most.
Plus, talk about unjustly profiling. You cannot just group certain people togather because they have simmilar beliefs on certain subjects. The human race is amazing because people cannot be profiled so easily, you cannot just categorize people.
If you start doing this and it actually catches on you will see a bunch of new abbreviations popping up and soon enough posts will start to look like this:
"Well call me an FC but I think JC never really meant to AGC and this whole XNA issue is merley and attempt by LAB's to cause mass hysteria as is pretty common among HRR's and BGJ's."
And you will get noobs askingon every thread "what's an FC?"
If Jesus was born today he would be institutionalized as a schizophrenic with delusions of grandeur.
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Offline "Dude, you gotta go DHV on that HB10."
"Totally. Should I drop a neg and then opinion-open?"
"Hell yeah, brah. Use the two-part kiss opener. You'll be *closing in no time."
Ha.
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Offline Yeh that kind of mind numbing crap, see I use to teach this shit and I do not even know what some of the stuff you said means , 'DHV' ??. Imagine an outsider trying to look in.... it is like a community having its own dialect, makes it that little bit more unappealing. Add to that how unpopular this sites message already is people should be making it more appealing not less.
If Jesus was born today he would be institutionalized as a schizophrenic with delusions of grandeur.
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Offline I believe that the books I have read by Richard Dawkins were written by him.
[/quote wrote:
Because you have no reason to think the publisher has any motivation to lie. If you read a news story that publishers are being paid large sums of money to change the name of authors and this practice was common, you'd start to doubt.
What does religion do? They repeat the mantra "The family that prays together, stays together" and "sick children that see their parents pray for them get healed". This could be true, I don't know. Even if it is, it is zero evidence for god. So, they convince followers this is true and use junk logic to say this is evidence for god. So a woman that doesn't want to be abandoned by her husband and have rebellious children has a huge motivation to lie about believing. They use Pascal's wager about the afterlife to get people to lie to themselves.
Religious dogma and "proof" is not about proving God's existence. It's about giving people motivation to lie about believing.
Read Rick Warren, he's all about saying belief in God and his version of religion is the only thing that can give your life meaning and purpose. Zero proof of God. Tons of motivation to lie to yourself about believing. Then he says my bet is the best bet. He's as certain of the outcome as any gambler in a casino.
If you repeat a lie often enough it becomes the truth. So religion continually reinforces lies to try to make it the truth in the minds of it's followers.
I don't see how it is possible that one can force oneself to believe. No do I think it is possible to believe out of fear or ignorance. They are not believing they are engaged in wish thinking. If you point this out to them and they still claim to believe without evidence, they are lying.
So religion gives people the ultimate motivation to lie. Blessing or curses in this life. Heaven or Hell in the next. My definition of faith is repeating the lie you want to be true often enough that it becomes your truth.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
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Because you have no reason to think the publisher has any motivation to lie. If you read a news story that publishers are being paid large sums of money to change the name of authors and this practice was common, you'd start to doubt.
Actually it is very common practice for authors to not use their name. Have you ever heard of Richard Bachman?
I also have no reason to believe that the average person going to church giving up 10% of their wages and countless hours of their life to help their church is gaining anything selfishly out of their religion. I see no reason for this person to lie.
What does religion do? They repeat the mantra "The family that prays together, stays together" and "sick children that see their parents pray for them get healed". This could be true, I don't know. Even if it is, it is zero evidence for god. So, they convince followers this is true and use junk logic to say this is evidence for god. So a woman that doesn't want to be abandoned by her husband and have rebellious children has a huge motivation to lie about believing. They use Pascal's wager about the afterlife to get people to lie to themselves.
Why are you talking about evidence of god? The fact that god is real or not real does not have anything to do with the OP. The fact that information is falsified does not imply a lack of belief. Pascal's Wager is not even something that most people know about as Pascal's Wager. There are no doubt that some people have professed belief because of Pascal's Wager, but these are not the majority. Plus, the fear of Hell existing is belief in hell and belief that there is a reasonable enough chance at a God to profess belief and if they believe they can go to hell, they do believe that god is possible. If they believe that god is possible enough to fear hell, then it's not a far stretch to believe that god exists in some form.
It should also be noted that a very large number of theists don't believe in the concept of hell, including a lot of Christians. Hell as a tool of fear is only effective with religions that believe in it.
Religious dogma and "proof" is not about proving God's existence. It's about giving people motivation to lie about believing.
It is about people justifying their belief. Not everyone is a selfish dick purely out for self gain. And the great majority of people of faith do not gain a thing out of that faith. We are not talking about the minority of people who intentionally deceive for self-gain, we are talking about the great majority who have bought into the belief. There are also people who DO gain that are devout followers. I don't imagine that any sane person would claim that the pope does not believe in god. Then again, you may be willing to make that claim based on the other irrational claims you have made.
Read Rick Warren, he's all about saying belief in God and his version of religion is the only thing that can give your life meaning and purpose. Zero proof of God. Tons of motivation to lie to yourself about believing. Then he says my bet is the best bet. He's as certain of the outcome as any gambler in a casino.
Proof of god has NOTHING to do with belief. NOTHING. This is the whole fucking point of the word FAITH.
What the fuck does it mean to lie to yourself? Intellectual dishonesty is about not connecting the dots, but this does not imply lies.
None of what you are saying has anything to do with atheist or theist as terms, none of what you are saying is discounting whether someone is lieing about their belief.
If you repeat a lie often enough it becomes the truth. So religion continually reinforces lies to try to make it the truth in the minds of it's followers.
Not all people are religious. Not all theists are religious. You make an error in associating theism with religion. And none of this has any bearing as to if someone believes what htey are saying. If they believe something is true, they believe something is true irregardless of how they came to that conclusion. Get that through your head. It does not matter WHY someone believes something, they are not lieing if their reasons are bullshit. Just like you are not lieing about your belief that you are right, despite the fact that your claims have no truth, no evidence, are irrational, illogical, are absurd, and no one has supported.
I don't see how it is possible that one can force oneself to believe. No do I think it is possible to believe out of fear or ignorance. They are not believing they are engaged in wish thinking. If you point this out to them and they still claim to believe without evidence, they are lying.
They are not lying, that is the definition of the word faith. Look it up.
So religion gives people the ultimate motivation to lie. Blessing or curses in this life. Heaven or Hell in the next. My definition of faith is repeating the lie you want to be true often enough that it becomes your truth.
If it becomes your truth, and you believe it...then you are not a liar for claiming it is your belief. Get that through your thick skull. If you believe something, you believe it. The only person you can call a liar is the person who is conciously aware that they are claiming a belief that they don't hold. It must be an active concious decision to deceive about their faith. There are some people in this column. Your claim is that there are potentially as many as 6 billion people in the world that are activly conciously lieing about their faith. That the poor sap in Africa that is dieing of starvation and claiming to believe in God is lieing. They don't know any other alternative, but they are fucking deceitful assholes just trying to selfishly get something out of it.
I'm sitting here forced to agree with theists just because I find it embarassing when atheists present these kind of irrational claims. I'm here to argue against irrational behavior, and that is exactly what you are presenting here. Simply illogical, irrational claims that have no bearing on anything in the real world. You have invented your own fairy tale land where what you are saying is actually meaningful. You may as well start up a cult. This is as absurd as the Raleans. You put faith in a bunch of bullshit without any reason to believe in it other than your whim.
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Offline Actually it is very common practice for authors to not use their name. Have you ever heard of Richard Bachman?
So you were lying before when you said you believed Richard Dawkins wrote the books with his name on them? You actually have reason to doubt?
the fear of Hell existing is belief in hell
Not necessarily. It can be a belief in the possibility of Hell, not in the reality of Hell.
It should also be noted that a very large number of theists don't believe in the concept of hell, including a lot of Christians.
I know they just cherry pick whatever they like from holy books with no reason other than it feels right to them. Show intellectual dishonesty.
I don't imagine that any sane person would claim that the pope does not believe in god.
I imagine many people would have said the same of Mother Theresa. Now that her private papers are published, many people do claim she appeared to have tons of doubt an may be an atheist. Christopher Hitchens seemed to have a lot of doubt about her sincerity.
After the pope was shot, he believed that the Virgin Mary saved his life. But then after that he would go out in public surrounded by bullet proof glass. He put his faith in the science. If he really believed VM saved him he would have done more things to invoke the power of the VM instead of putting his faith in science.
I don't think the pope is a believer in God. He may just be betting the Catholic myth is the best bet. He may have just selfish motivations for power.
What the fuck does it mean to lie to yourself?
People do it all the time. Believing something is true just cause you wish it is true. Look at obese people that lie about not being overweight, so they never diet. Self improvement start with being honest with yourself.
Just like you are not lieing about your belief that you are right, despite the fact that your claims have no truth, no evidence, are irrational, illogical, are absurd, and no one has supported.
I don't claim my theories are 100% true. Until science can build mind reading machines, they can't be tested. It's how I see the situation based on anechdotal evidence and patterns I see. I've been around enough believers to see the insincerity in all of them. It seems more rational to me to catagorize things this way than atheist or theist, given what these words mean in common usage.
The only person you can call a liar is the person who is conciously aware that they are claiming a belief that they don't hold. It must be an active concious decision to deceive about their faith.
How many people that claim they are bible believing Christians are there? How many of them drink deadly poison, pick up deadly snake or move mountains?
They all hold two sets of beliefs in their minds.
Here is an experpt from Christopher Hitchens to prove my point.
I debated a guy named Mark Roberts, Hugh Hewitt’s choice of pastor. Hewitt is a major Christian broadcaster and he said, “I’m going to put up a champion against you.” I said, “Bring it on!” So I asked this guy, Roberts, “Do you believe St. Matthew when he describes the crucifixion and says all of the graves of Jerusalem opened and all the corpses walked around greeting their old friends?”
And he answered too quickly. He said, “Yes, I do, of course I do. I’m a Christian—I have to believe it.” But he added, “As a historian, I’m not absolutely sure.” I said, “Thanks for that. I must say, it's the most incredible answer I ever heard.”
So we can see, so called Theists keep two sets of books.
That the poor sap in Africa that is dieing of starvation and claiming to believe in God is lieing.
I'm not making any moral judgements about lying about belief. There is no God to make lying a sin. So lies are only bad if they are self destructive or destructive to others. This lie is self destructive cause it gives him false hope and just waists his time and energy instead of solving his problem. I'm not making any bad moral judgements about him for lying, I feel bad that missionary liars trained him to lie about belief in order to get food. Their lies are destructive to others.
I can see by your tone that you use the tactic of religious bullies like in the Islamic world to push your beliefs and try and intimidate others out of theirs. So everyone will agree with you, great for you! There is not much disagreement with the mullahs in Sadia Arabia either. And those few that do are re-educated in the "faith" or beheaded.
Do people really agree with you or are they motivated just to get along and not encure your rath, insults and name calling? Are they being dishonest about their opinions because you've intimidated them with your tone here?
I am not telling people to believe as I do or insulting them or name calling them if they don't. I'm not making any general moral judgements about so called Theist that lie about their belief.Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
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Offline No, I"m not suggesting that I don't believe that Dawkins wrote the book but I am suggesting that there is a reason to be sketpical. I don't think that it's a good enough reason, but at least I have established evidence to support a reason for sketpicism. It's just pointless to waste time being sketpical about it.
You're a lost cause. I'll leave you with your fucked up little universe as I really should have last time.
You sound paranoid assuming everyone is a liar about their beliefs.
This has nothing to do with morals or ethics. You're accusing 5-6 billion people of being intentionally dishonest about the same subject. You're not suggesting people are not doing the research justice, you're suggesting that they are blatantly dishonest about the subject.
The worst part is that you're generalizing them based concepts that are not used in all religions. And don't even factor in people that are theists and do not conform to a religion.
I just don't see any logical or rational reason to accept such a conclusion based on your personal, and rather biased, opinion.
What a fucking waste of life it would be to invest am achine to read mines just so we can go around tagging people as theists or not. What a crock of useless bullshit.
As for me being a bully...you apparnetly have no clue as to my historical nature to recognize that my reaction to you has been almost exclusive. You're making an assumption based on your impression based on one instance rather than developing a trend and trying to determine if there is a pattern. I think you would find that if you did any research on my posts, my essays, my posts on christianforums etc you would not fine this tone I have taken with you to be normal even when I am in strong disagreemnt with someone.
Your idea and proposal and defence of it is just shameful. It is no better than theists claiming "personal experience" as their reason for god.
You are making a claim that 5-6 billion people in the world are intentionally dishonest about their belief in a deity. It is now up to you to justify the claim. Until then, you are full of shit just like anyone else who believes in god because there is 0 evidence to back up your claim.
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Offline To expand upon my last post, regarding the poor definition of "belief":
EXC's entire premise relies on his re-defining of the word "belief." In their apologetic series, the good (?) folks at Way of the Master use a similar tactic to make the claim that atheists do not exist.
The tactic revolves around the term "ignorance" and it's relation to belief and knowledge. EXC has made it clear on more than one occasion that one cannot believe out of ignorance. The WotM folks argue that without absolute knowledge, that is, knowledge of everything and anything that is knowable, ignorance exists at some level (they use this in their argument that all "atheists" are actually "agnostics"
. From those definitions, we can arrive at the conclusion that beliefs cannot exist in the human mind.
Since this would make modern uses of language very impractical, it would be best, I should think, NOT to limit "beliefs" to those that are made in absense of ignorance.
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Offline Why does every post in this forum turn into an argument? Don't you people have better thigns to do?
I am not trying to start an argument, really I am not I just want to understand why anybody would invest so much time arguing with somebody else. Humans faced with being wrong will never admit it, that is one part of human nature you can count on 9 times out of 10.
This is not even an intelligent debate it is a pure argument.
Maybe it is just me; maybe I am the strange one for not starting fights with everybody online.
I am guessing it takes you about 10 min to compose each post. Multiply that by the 10 useless argumentative posts made daily it's over 1.5 hours wasted arguing a useless point. Wow, what an incredible waste of time, why not do something a little more constructive?
If Jesus was born today he would be institutionalized as a schizophrenic with delusions of grandeur.
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Offline Why does every post in this forum turn into an argument? Don't you people have better thigns to do?
I am not trying to start an argument, really I am not I just want to understand why anybody would invest so much time arguing with somebody else. Humans faced with being wrong will never admit it, that is one part of human nature you can count on 9 times out of 10.
This is not even an intelligent debate it is a pure argument.
Maybe it is just me; maybe I am the strange one for not starting fights with everybody online.
I am guessing it takes you about 10 min to compose each post. Multiply that by the 10 useless argumentative posts made daily it's over 1.5 hours wasted arguing a useless point. Wow, what an incredible waste of time, why not do something a little more constructive?
Well, I'll be surprised if any of my replies take 10 minutes. I'd crack 1000 words easily in 10 minutes.
That said, I rarely argue to this extent. I honestly don't know why I went this far with it. Frustration primarily. The first couple posts I was hoping to make him realize that his categorization and labeling was not accurate nor reflective of reality was based on too much presumption. When he failed to recognize that it just angered me that he was so confident in his labeling. It's a ludicrous labeling system and I had hoped to make him realize that.
For the most part I don't get into petty arguments but I rather enjoy a lot of the discussion. It is natural for most discussions on the internet to turn into an argument on some level when they start with two people with opposing views. That is going to be found here, it is going to be found on a forum discussing the quality of cat food.
You're right, this is not a debate it is pure argument. I would not suggest this is the normal.
As for doing something more constructive...I'm sure there are many pointless things that you do in your life why would you waste time to criticize what someone else does to waste their time? There is no doubt that I could be doing something constructive than replying to your post now..but I choose to do it because I want to. That is the only reason to do anything ultimatly.
A conversation like this is like playing a pointless video game. I do'nt really care about the result, I'm just wasting time.
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Offline Ok now that I can agree with, I do sometimes waste time even though I try not to. I actully wasted half of last week playing computer games.
I run my own forum and I never get arguments in it. I guess I just expect the same in all other forums when in actuality it is my forum that is the odd one out. Whenever I get into an argument it reaches a point (very quicly) at which I say to myself 'screw it this is not worth my time' and walk away. I just hate the idea of wasting time on a fruitless endevour.
If Jesus was born today he would be institutionalized as a schizophrenic with delusions of grandeur.
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Offline You are making a claim that 5-6 billion people in the world are intentionally dishonest about their belief in a deity.
You sound paranoid assuming everyone is a liar about their beliefs.
Where did I make this claim? Most people just don't care.
To set the record strait I never maid this claim. I came up with 4 catagories, only only one of which is people who lie. Of those who lie, I don't know what their intentions are. Many profess out of fear, ignorance, habit, search for acceptance, ect... I just know the very religious keep two sets of books.
The fact is we don't have a world where people feel they can express their true beliefs. That's why we have a world run by intimidation and fear. You have proved my point with your vitriol, name calling, etc...
You are the finest example I've seen of why people lie about what they really believe. This is the kind of intimidation children get when they tell their parents they don't believe in God. Bulling people with every insult you can into "believing" what you believe and then saying people don't lie about what they "believe".
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
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Offline 1) All of your categories are still theists or atheists so both atheists and theists do exist which contradicts your subject.
2) Your understanding of atheist and agnostic is incorrect.
3) Your assumption that 80-90% of the world's population are lie about their claim to believe in a deity is nothing short of stupid. You made this claim when you said 99% of very religous people are liars.
4) Proving that someone believes in a deity and proving the effect of a prayer are different subjects.
5) Moral and ethical high ground has nothing to do with the opening topic.
6) You seem to think that scientific studies on the effect of prayers and tests of faith have not happened, and you need to look into that. Links were even provided earlier in this thread to some tests of that nature.
7) Your terminology would never be accepted on a large scalebecause it is unnecessary, biased, redundant, offensive, and wrong.
you're right, i should have just ignored you when i realized you nothing useful to add instead of getting pissed and justifying your statements with a response.
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Offline Why does every post in this forum turn into an argument? Don't you people have better thigns to do?
Cause some people love the status quo of deception and dishonesty in the world. They become angry and vitriolic when anyone threatens their view of things.
Yes, I do have better things. This is why 5-6 billion people in the world don't care. It's too much of a pain in the ass to deal with the asses of the world.
But thank you Mr. Atheist for giving me more evidence of why most people don't care or are intimidated to lie about their beliefs.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
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Offline NickB wrote:Why does every post in this forum turn into an argument? Don't you people have better thigns to do?
Cause some people love the status quo of deception and dishonesty in the world. They become angry and vitriolic when anyone threatens their view of things.
Yes, I do have better things. This is why 5-6 billion people in the world don't care. It's too much of a pain in the ass to deal with the asses of the world.
But thank you Mr. Atheist for giving me more evidence of why most people don't care or are intimidated to lie about their beliefs.
With each and every post you make, you're starting to sound more and more like the Time-Cube guy.
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Offline I'll tell you what EXC...
I'll back off the blatant aggressive and insults if you start providing some form of evidence and address my summary issues individually and tell me why my summary is incorrect or correct.
In addition, I really do suggest checking my post history to find out if I am treating you in an excpetional manner.
Lastly, you should also note that no one has agreed with your permise yet.
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Offline Let me throw this out there EXC...
Why should I give your belief more respect than I do religious beliefs?
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I think you make a lot of assumptions about peoles intentions which often doesn't affect their actual belief in god, and a number of your descriptions indicate a belief in god regardless of believe...
I don't get the need to remove the term theist and all of it's historical meaning with random phrases that you came up with that are biased towards your view and I don't believe an honest reflection of peoples beliefs.
Regardless of why a person believes in a god (Ignorance, education, lack of education, personal experience etc) they still have that belief.
Atheist also does not suggest 0%, nor does agnostic suggest 50%.
Atheist merely suggests disbelief regardless of reasons or lack of reasons, and Agnostic is a different topic that addresses knowledge of god. You should read the following to better understand these two terms.: Am I Agnostic or Atheist?
Your defintions are redundant, unneccessary, presumptuous, and could never be used on a large scale due to it's offensive bias.
Well I read your post and I think you're crazy. Or maybe you don't exist.
My Artwork
put this all to rest , say these words, "i am god as you" ....
sheezz said Jesus/ Buddha ! me too ....
Atheism Books.
Your categorization seems rather arbitrary to me.
Yeah , bummer!
God is arbitrary?
How so ??? Oh yeah , a religion says so .... what a joke , I wish it was a joke, that old religion of god of abe, .... that's a bad sad idea .... a lie, Obviously. What a disgrace and embarrassment religion is .... to GOD as you and me and ALL .... 
Atheism Books.
Well, I don't expect people to agree with me. Especially in a freethinkers group. But if you're really an objective thinker, one should question everything. Just because everyone else categorizes people atheist or theist does not mean that I should. I should decide for myself based on observations what is the proper way to categorize people's belief system.
I want others including so called theists to come up with their own categorization of beliefs. Why just go along with the dogma that everyone is either a total theist or a total atheist.
I disagree, an ignorant, childish or fearful person can not believe. If someone teaches a 3 year old to say "Jesus loves me", this is not belief. When Muslims put a knife to some one's throat and force them to "believe" the prophet, this is not belief. What people say and what they really believe are two completely different things.
To you, but to the majority of LABs, DABs and DCs this is what they associate with these terms(also immoral person). That's why I'd like to see these terms die. If a term like "Honest about beliefs" was used, the LABs would no longer be able to claim the moral high ground in this battle.
OK, then why won't LABs take lie detector tests and submit to studies that can prove if God intervenes for prayer and tithing. Then I won't have to be presumptuous, we'd have data to prove if my theories are valid. I don't want to be presumptuous, but they leave me no choice. You are being presumptuous in claiming that they really do believe.
So you are worried about offending "believers" who call atheists immoral, unpatriotic destroyers of society? If a pharmaceutical company makes claims about their products that there is no evidence to support and they refuse to submit to scientific study, you would rightly call them frauds, right? Why do you give people's religious belief's more respect than any other claims?
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
OK, then how do you categorize beliefs and why? Is everyone who makes claims about belief telling the truth or are they lying, speaking out of fear, guilt and peer pressure? Should I still call these people Theists?
Can a 3 year old child be a Theist?
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
You can call people whatever you want, but at the end of the day the parent groups of theist and atheist still apply. They are words that have a meaning. You can create whatever chlid categories you wish, it doesn't affect those two terms and their accuracy. There is no such thing as a half atheist or a half theist. I think you are reading far too much into the meanings of the words.
An ignorant person can, a childish person can, and a fearful person can. That does not imply a correlation between what a person says and what a person actually believes, but if a person actually believes in their own mind then they are a theist. You are suggesting that we should not believe anyone who says that they believe in a deity? I know for sure that I believed in a god. Sure I didn't know the alternatives but I did believe in a god. I don't hold a default position that the person I am talking to is a liar.
This is largely what the 'atheist movement' is about. It's educating the public that we are not those things. You may want to see us use terms that call everyone liars, but I highly doubt that anyone who believes what they are saying are going to self-categorize themselves as a liar about their beliefs. And at the end of hte day none of this affects whether someone should be classified as an atheist or a theist because if they are lieing about their belief then they are an atheist, if they are honest they are a theist. I just think you want to categorize people arbitrarily based on your own assumptions that they are liars as liars about their belief.
I know some have. But there are many theists who have a religion and don't neccessarily believe that their prayers will be answered. People have doubts about their faith and they don't want to see science call them a liar and embarass them on a large scale. I would prefer not to take a lie detector test about a lot of things as well. Lie detector tests are also not fool-proof. They can be lied to, and they can also give off false readings if the person being tested is simply very nervous about the test results.
I am not being presumptuous in cliaming that they really do believe, I just don't what the average lay-man has to gain about claiming and defending a belief without actually believing it themselves. People who question their faith tend not to debate for it. Not that this really matters. Even if a person says they are a theist and I label them a theist, they could very well be an atheist. EIther way they fall under a categorizeation of one or the other regardless of if they are lieing about it.
It's not about 'offending believers' so much as the reality that you can not have a term become mainstream or widely used based on it being offensive to the people you are addressing it towards. Not all theists refer to atheists are immoral, unpatriotic destroyers of society. You making the same error that they are making by generalizing associations to all theists rather than being specific about the religious sects / people that actually believe such a thing. It does not matter if someone who is a theist is really an atheist, this does not change the fact that they are still an atheist or a theist. Have you submtitted your own beliefs to scientific study to earn your atheist badge? Of course not, it's ludicrous to suggest that we should assume everyone is a liar about everything and they should submit to scientific study everytime they express an opinon on a subject.
In summary: none of what you are suggesting negates the terms theist and atheist. Your terms are offensive so they never have a hope to catch on. It's ludicrous for every person to come up with their own terms for the same things. Theist and Atheist are intentionally parent groups for a massive array of beliefs and opinons. It is a polarized split based on the simple question if if you believe in a deity. People lieing does not affect which group they fall under.